Fire and Ice
by The Rev
Summary: -Sequel to The Golden Moon- An evil spirit that not even the Kais recognize is prowling around the universe, and Goku may find that the enemy will take on a face that is far too close to him for comfort. R rating is only for violence.
1. Chapter One

Chapter One:

If it weren't for the huge flashes of ki going off in the sky, tearing into the ground and rivaling the sun for brightness, the scene would have been beautiful. Green tress, dew still clinging to the leaves. The early morning sun had not been out for long enough to make the air really hot; it was only pleasantly warm. Oblivious to the chaos happening so nearby, birds nested in the trees, their song providing a bizarre contrast to the explosions not far away, explosions that they had gotten used to due to them happening every day for quite a long while.

Vegeta's knee was aimed for the abdomen of Son Goku, but it was stopped by the saiyajin's hands, sending another huge wave of energy across the landscape. 

The two sparred, not too intensely, without speaking or even communicating at all. Not to say that they were silent. They screamed and yelled, letting out loud kiais that helped focus the blow as it was landed. Though they didn't communicate verbally, they were in an almost preternatural rhythm, where difference in strength and power didn't matter. Their strength was totally even, their movements calculated so that neither really landed any decisive blow. 

It was more of an exercise to increase speed and stamina, and polish technique. The two fighters practiced this ritual so often that it had lost some of the aspects of a battle, and begun to resemble a savage, brutal dance. 

They floated in the air, ki lightning flashing around them, digging trenches into the ground. Below them, the earth was being torn apart, although this particular area had been their sparring ground for a while, so it was slightly hard to tell. A line so straight that it could have been drawn with a ruler cut off the lush forest where the birds sang from the barren, torn waste that Goku and Vegeta sparred over. 

In that torn wasteland, oblivious to the noise and also to the occasional stray bolt of ki that hit him, was a man, slightly boyish in appearance, though almost as tall as his teacher, and muscular. His skin was dark brown, and his hair was black, a mohawk that stuck up into the air, front locks coming down in a wave over his forehead. He wore white pants and a dark blue weighted cloak, his feet and chest bare. 

Uubu's eyes were closed as he mediated amidst the chaos that the two older warrior's created. He had experimented in many different sorts of environment, meditating in everyplace of the world from the middle of the desert to underground. And he had discovered that while nearly anyone could learn to meditate successfully in the peace and silence of total solitude, such as Piccolo preferred, it took real skill to meditate in the midst of utter chaos.

Meditation wasn't what most laymen would think of it as. It wasn't a strange trance that emptied your mind, at least not in the form Uubu practiced it. Though he had heard of certain religious and even martial arts sects that did it in this way.

The form of meditation that he, and all the successful warriors he had studied with, practiced was entirely different. The form those monks and fighters practiced in general was a way of tuning out the outside and turning totally toward one's self. The form that Uubu used was the opposite; it tuned out the self, and tapped into the whole wide world. The ki and the spirit, the mental consciousness of the planet itself and the people around you. How far and how deep you could tap into it, this strange, almost psychic undercurrent of life, depended on how skilled and naturally gifted the particular practitioner was. 

Right now he was so un-tethered from his body that he was barely aware of it. It was peaceful, being a part of the life force of the universe, rather than only himself. And there was something else, too. When you were a part of everything around you, you could always tell if something was wrong.

He was at the point now where he could extend himself and feel all that was happening over the entire planet, to an extent. And even some of space. It wasn't a set range; some days he could feel further than others, and he could feel further in some directions than others. The whole thing was a continuing mystery, and that was one thing that kept it interesting.

He couldn't have really said why he liked so much to be a part of this huge force, rather than himself. Maybe no one could have really said. He only knew that he found it peaceful, pleasant. He could not have known that something may have been wrong with his own mind, or not, just like every other mortal, because their own mind was the only singular consciousness that they knew. He had no context, nothing to compare his own mentality to, really. He had no way of knowing what was different, or normal, or right. He only knew himself, just like everyone else. 

The problem was, no one person can truly know even themselves. There are some areas of the mind that are secrets even from those to whom they belong. Dark caverns and crevices, whole galleries that lay dormant and unused, unknown by the conscious mind.

And because of this, a question arises. When evil souls were sent to hell, they were cleansed and reincarnated as a general rule. But those of monsters so evil and insane that they were sent down to the lowest hells, were not reused. This was because with great evil comes, usually, insanity. And even more, far more, unexplored areas of the mind. The question is, can creatures of such complexity and evil be really cleansed? Creatures such as Cell, Frieza? 

Creatures such as Majin Buu? 

The girl was young, sixteen at most, and clothed in soiled rags that kept the wind out about as well as nothing at all. She stood on the platform of what appeared to be a huge station of some kind, like a train station. Only docked at the various bays were not trains, but ships built to carry passengers across whole galaxies.

She stood amidst the bustling crowd, full of faces so varied that trying to take them all in was impossible. She appeared strangely beautiful in this setting, and indeed she was. Her hair was as white as new snow, cut short enough to fly around her head in semi-ordered tufts, except in front, where it was slightly longer and hung lower. But this disarray only added to her overall appearance, in some strange way. Her skin was slightly pale, eyes just a little larger than average, dark green.

Across one of them ran a scar. It started at her hairline, lanced down over her left eye (how she hadn't lost it was a mystery), curved slightly over her cheekbone, and ended near the corner of her mouth.

Her build was naturally slight, but made even more-so because she was malnourished, a child who had left home too soon and was now living the life of a vagrant, that much was obvious. But she had good muscle tone as well, very likely from some sort of combat, and in all aspects but her slightly childlike face, she was a woman.

The reason she caught Arda's eye was because she looked very frightened. The vampire had seen her exit a small, old looking ship, the sole passenger. How she could have paid for a private taxi, even one as old as the one she had exited only a moment ago, was beyond him, but apparently she had. 

He was only here for a brief stop, to re-fuel the ship he was in before launching back into space until the fuel tanks ran dry again. If he had come five minutes sooner or later, he would have missed her all together, and maybe that would have been better. But he saw her, and instantly felt sorry for her, the expression of fear and anxiety on her face as she glanced back and forth across the port bringing this emotion to the front.

He reached out with his telepathic ability, but to his frustration he couldn't get more than the same fear he saw on her face. Apparently, she was trying _not _to think about what was actually making her feel afraid. he could have dug deeper into her mind and found the memories, but he considered it a horribly rude thing to do.

Instead, he decided to go talk to her. At the very least, he could get her a meal and something warm to drink.

The sky was already dark and cloudy, and as he began to move through the crowd, it began to sprinkle down rain lightly.

With another telepathic impulse, this one much more subtle, he made himself obvious to her, as well as letting her know that he had nothing but good intentions. But when she saw him, her eyes widened a bit, more fear showing on her face. he saw her vision of him in her mind; Hair hanging down long in waves and curls, matching his eyes, the color of fresh blood. Skin so white that it shone like alabaster, clothed in rags not so much better than her own and covered with a dark green trench-coat. Startling, if not frightening, but his simple appearance was not the only reason for her fear.

In her mind, he saw that he was similar, either in appearance or some other way, to what she was so terrified of.

He stepped up in front of her, his own stature not too much greater than hers. The fear left her eyes in an instant, and was replaced by something else. Determination, maybe.

He remained silent at first, wondering if she would perhaps say something, give some indication of why she felt such fear, which was still apparent even though she hid it very well. But she didn't speak. If anything, the silence seemed to stretch and thicken, the sounds of the rest of the port growing dim until it was just them, looking at each other.

Finally, Arda broke the silence.

"You look hungry." He said matter-of-factly. 

The defiant expression on her face was suddenly cracked. At the mention of the word hunger, her own was rekindled, on her face and in her mind. He felt it in the forefront of her brain, and recognized it instantly. Before he had been a three millennia old monster, he had been a boy, and knew what it was like to be a homeless wanderer. You grew so used to being hungry that your stomach ceased to exist, except as a hard knot in your middle, until someone mentioned food. Then you suddenly remembered.

The crack in her mask of defiance was mended as quickly as it had been made. "I'm fine." She said shortly. Her voice was like her; light and pretty, but with more than a hint of steel underneath. He quickly changed his assumption of her just by the way she reacted. The lost look on her face could be put off totally to fear of whatever it was; this girl had been alone for a while, and she was probably tough as nails. Whatever she was afraid of, it had simply shaken her to the core.

The look of sympathy on his face only caused her to scowl. 

He tried again. "Please, let me buy you some food. I won't hurt you, you know. Whatever you're afraid of, it's not me."

Her eyes widened suddenly, and her face shifted from a scowl to utter disbelief. It was a reaction he had grown used to. 

"Come on. I'll buy you a meal, and if I can, I'll try to help you." He grinned in an open, kind way. "After all, I don't have anything else to do."

Whether it was the kind tone of his voice, or for some other reason, her demeanor now subtly changed. She was looking at him not as a strange person who was invading, but as someone who she needed to ask questions of. He could hear her working it over in her mind, and got another glimpse of her slightly cold, practical personality. She could get a free meal out of it, at least. And this guy seemed to know something, so maybe he could help…

Her mind suddenly was cut off, but he got one more word. _Killed_.

This was making him uneasy. He would have to ask her a few questions.

Kaio-sama watched over the entire northern galaxy, one fourth of the remaining one forth of the universe, which was divided between him and his three counterparts. The remaining three fourths were barren wastelands that had no gods and few inhabitants, save those few living beings that had begun to explore since the long ago rampage of destruction of Majin Buu.

It was from these barren, mostly uncharted deserts, the death valley that spanned three quarters of the universe, that the vampire Osiris had appeared into the long series of events that were recorded as The Golden Moon. But Osiris was not the focus of that story, or this one. And there were many other things out there, things that went undetected during the centuries that the gods did not even glance into this land of death.

But Kaio-sama was looking now. Specifically, he was looking at a rather large spaceport on the edge of the waste, the largest before the utopia of civilization in space became an airless desert. A former pupil of his was there, and that was an astonishing coincidence. The one he was mostly looking at was the girl who was now with his pupil. He was watching her to the extent that he took his attention away from his own galaxy; because of where she had come from, and what had just happened there.

In broad terms, a spirit had been up to very bad things. A rather newly dead spirit, and one that the Kai could not identify. This troubled him greatly, because he knew as a god the names and kis of every spirit he had ever seen, and this one was no ancient that had died before his time. This thing had died less than a century ago, he would have staked his life on it.

Even that wouldn't have bothered him so much. Spirits were up to tricks all the time, and so what if he had forgotten one? 

The thing that bothered him was what this spirit was doing.

Being in the middle of a large busy spaceport, it was no hard task to find a bar/restaurant where they could sit in a corner unobserved. The place they entered was dirty, and mostly filled with aliens that didn't even give them a glance before taking another sip of various drinks or a bite of a cheap, tasteless meal. The only light seemed to come from two red lights, one at the entrance and one over the bar.

Arda immediately wove through the tables that were peopled by various bizarre looking creatures, and she followed behind him until they were in a back corner, surrounded by several empty tables.

He sat down, and after a second, she did the same. The table was made of a dark colored wood, covered with a worn oilcloth. The chairs were the same.

"Now." Arda said suddenly, and she seemed to jump as if someone had pinched her. The girl was so on edge, she seemed not to be able to decide whether to be suspicious or afraid, or both. The expressions on her face were a strange mixture. First she looked afraid, then she seemed to grow angry with herself for feeling afraid, and then she would quickly cover it up with a mask of contemptuous defiance. This was how she was looking at him now.

"Listen, I'm not going to hurt you or anything." He said. "You don't have to jump around like a nervous animal every time I speak." He smiled a wide, open sort of smile. "You looked hungry, and scared, so I thought I would buy you something to eat. Is that worthy of so much suspicion?" 

Her face changed, eyes widening, very pretty eyes. She still looked suspicious, but now a bit confused as well. In his mind, Arda was surprised that he had even been able to convince her that much. A homeless girl, humanoid (considered by many less physically attractive species to be a great prize), on her own and apparently defenseless, she had to be suspicious of everyone, male or female, no matter how friendly they seemed. 

"What…" she paused. "What do you want?"

He smiled. "Well, right now I'd settle for a name. After that, you can decide. I want nothing that you are unwilling to give."

She pushed her chair back suddenly and stood up. "Okay, I see what this is about. You can forget it, bud. I'm not _that _hungry."

She hadn't even turned to leave when he threw his head back and burst out laughing, drawing the stare of nearly every customer in the place. She looked more confused than ever, one hand still resting on the back of the chair. The vampire choked back his laughter, waving his hand toward the chair she had just vacated. 

"Sit down, sit down. You've got it totally wrong."

Still confused, she seemed to hesitate. The various staring aliens turned back to whatever had held their attention before the alien sound of laughter had filled the place. 

Arda grinned wryly. "Believe me, I have absolutely no interest in _that._ Just sit down."

Slowly, still staring skeptically at him, she did.

A grumpy looking fat pink alien waddled up to them suddenly. He was wearing a greasy apron, and had a small silver rectangle in his hand that was presumably some device for recording orders. He had a very difficult accent to understand, but he asked them in the Common language what they would like. 

Arda looked at the girl, raised his eyebrows. "Whatever you want, I can cover it."

She looked up to the fat alien. "Whatever's good here for humanoids is fine." She said. "Just bring me a big plate."

It nodded and waddled off after pressing several buttons on the metal rectangle. 

"Well, you still haven't answered me." Arda said as soon as the waiter was out of hearing range. 

"What?"

"Your name." He said. "Unless you would prefer I call you Hey You."

The curious stare was beginning to unnerve him a bit. Her expression hadn't changed since he had burst out laughing when she presumed that he wanted sex.

"Mia." She pronounced it mee-ah.

He smiled. "Now, was that so hard?"

Before she could answer, the pink waiter came back and thrust a huge plate of some sort of noodles in front of her. They were steaming, and though they were blandly colored, they smelled rather good. She picked up the set of chopstick-like utensils that rested on the side of the plate and fell to with the enthusiasm of someone who has not eaten in a long while.

She paused, after a few bites, and looked up at him. "Aren't you eating anything?"

He shook his head. "No. I don't eat."

Her eyes narrowed a bit, almost to little to be perceptible. She swallowed the food in her mouth, but didn't take another bit right away. Instead she stared at him, suspicion back in her gaze.

"You don't eat?"

"No." he answered. His eyes were glittering in the half-gloom of the shadows. "I don't."

She said nothing for another few seconds. And he suddenly began picking up wild thoughts from her mind. She was beginning to make wild connections in her head, fear and some horrible, aggressive emotion whirling in her mind. Either she had encountered a vampire before, or she was just incredibly sharp. Or both. Because she was beginning to realize what he was, and the emotions were rapidly building in her mind.

He sighed. Best to get this over with. 

"I know what you're thinking, and yes, you're correct. I'm a vampire."

He was going to add that nothing he had said was a lie; he wasn't going to hurt her at all. But before he could do so she had leapt up from her chair, and in a flash a sword was in her hand, produced from somewhere under the rags she was wearing, and swinging directly for his forehead.

He reached up deftly and caught it between his palms.

Her eyes went wide. The sword he held in his hand was short, maybe a two and a half foot blade, perfectly straight until it's pointed end, about an inch from his face. there was a square guard above the hilt, which she held in both hands in perfect form. She knew how to use a sword well, then.

Arda was still smiling, but the smile changed subtly into a look of surprise when he saw something very odd. There was a trickle of blood running down each wrist. The blade had actually cut him, something that any metal he had ever seen would never be able to do.

Well, there was a first time for everything..

"Sharp sword." He said, letting the blade go.

Without a pause, the second her sword was free she swung it in a wide swipe that was aimed for decapitation. But the blade whistled through nothing but air.

"You're wasting your time." His voice came from behind her. 

She turned her head slowly over her shoulder, and there he was behind her, still smiling. Her face was twisted by some powerful inner emotion, frustration or fear.

He lay a hand softly on her shoulder, and spoke gently. "I'm not evil, okay? I was telling the truth when I said I wouldn't hurt you. Just sit down."

He was shocked at the extremity of her fear of him. Under his hand, he could feel her shaking. Her eyes were turbulent with fear, the kind of fear a child feels when seeing a monster, fear of something horrible and just beyond understanding.

At last, she picked her chair back up (it had overturned when she leapt to her feet) and sat down.

Arda moved swiftly back to his chair, noticing as he did that no one had even looked around at the sound of their sudden conflict. He wondered with brief concern what kind of place this was, where laughter was so startling and strange that everyone noticed, but when one person tried to cut another's throat, no one spared it so much as a second glance.

Then his gaze and concern turned back to Mia. She was sitting across from him, all composure gone, shaking like a leaf. 

His eyes were wide and gentle, and he sent the strongest telepathic urge he could of calmness.

"Now," he said softly, "I think you'd better tell me why you just tried to chop my head off."

Mia said nothing, only stared down at the table. She had drawn her knees up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them, making her look less like a defiant, homicidal woman and more like a frightened child. 

"Please." He said, his own concern for the girl startling him. "I may be able to help you if you just tell me what it is you're so afraid of."

And, momentarily, she did. 


	2. Chapter Two

Author's Note: 

Okay, I know this chapter took me a really long time to finish, and I can't apologize enough. But here it is, despite writer's block and an absolutely cataclysmic computer crash. There are quite a few plot twists in store, no one will guess where this is going until you read it, I can assure you. Well, maybe a few of you might guess, but that's okay.

And thanks from the bottom of my cold, black heart to the readers who have stuck by me through my long periods of silence. You guys absolutely rule, and are really the reason I still write DBZ at all. Thanks!!

Chapter Two:

__

…take them…rip……tear…kill…

Uubu's mind shifted slightly, his totally peaceful meditative trance disrupted by a whispering, hissing voice. A few short years of experience and practice earlier, he would have been shocked totally out of his trance, the voice was so unnatural. 

He listened hard, his awareness of self beginning to intrude on the trance. But the voice was not repeated. That is, if you could call it a voice. It hadn't sounded human at all.

His mind continued to drift in the black, but the peace that meditation brought him usually was now lost. That voice…. It hadn't been so much a voice as a command, a hissing spell that had stabbed through his meditative state like a hot knife through butter. Hearing words while in the trance was strange enough, but this…. 

__

Tear them apart…kill…you know you want to…

He actually gasped out loud this time, and he almost did lose the trance. That had been stronger, like words spoken directly in his ear. And even more peculiar was the wave of malice and hate that came with them. But the hate wasn't directed at him. Rather, it seemed to pass through him, become his own for an instant, and then fade away into nothing before he even really realized that it was there.

"What the hell is going on…." He whispered to himself, now almost fully back into the physical world. He could feel his arms and legs, and he was aware of breathing and the wind on his skin.

Now with his conscious will he began to wake himself up. Whatever this was, he didn't like it, and had never seen, felt, or heard anything like it before in his years of meditation. He would have to ask his sensei about it. If Goku didn't know, maybe Piccolo would…. 

__

KILL YOU ARE MINE AND I WILL HAVE YOU YOU WILL DO AS I SAY OBEY ME I AM YOUR MASTER

Stronger than the impulses of before, this was a scream, seeming to come from the center of his brain, like a sword going right through his head. Pain beyond imagining and a wave of absolute hate and lust for destruction and death overflowed his entire being, flooding his mind.

He was barely aware that he was screaming, and it was quite a while before the feeling finally subsided and he opened his eyes, looking into the worried faces of his sensei, and Vegeta.

Goku and Vegeta stopped the fight in mid-move when then shrieks of agony suddenly erupted from below them. For one second, Goku didn't realize the voice belonged to his only pupil, not until he looked down and actually saw the young man rolling around on the ground. He had never heard such screams issuing from his students mouth, roars of agony that should have been common in a medieval torture chamber, not this sunny day spent lightly sparring.

The two saiyajin shot each other a slightly frightened but mostly shocked glance and rapidly descended through the air, flying low and coming to a rest beside the writhing warrior on the ground. 

Uubu was roaring as if he were suffering the worst pain that a person could feel, both arms clutched tightly to his head as if trying to protect it from something. His knees were drawn up to his chest, feet kicking back and forth aimlessly. 

"Uubu!" Goku fell to his knees and grabbed his student by the shoulders. He gave him a good hard shake.

Uubu promptly sat up, eyes still shut tight, tears leaking out the sides, apparently totally unaware of what he was doing, and punched Goku square in the eye.

The saiyajin flew through the air and landed on his back in the dirt. By the time he hit the ground, Uubu had fallen back, his hands no longer clasped about his head. Punching Goku seemed to have brought some awareness to him, because now he was only lying on his back and moaning.

"Kakarott!" Vegeta sprinted over to him. "What the hell was that? Are you alright?"

Goku sat up, one hand pressed absently to his already swelling eye. "Yeah, I'm fine." He said indifferently. He got to his feet quickly and walked back over to his pupil, a perturbed looking saiyajin prince trailing behind him. 

They stood over the groaning Uubu, looking down at him, neither with any idea of what was happening or what to do about it.

"I don't really know where to start." Mia, the girl all in rags, with hair white as snow, said in a low voice that Arda could barely hear over the low mutterings and whispered conversations of the other customers in the bar. She had dropped her legs to the floor again, and was taking the occasional bite of food. It was either because of her own decision or because of the strong telepathic impulses of calm and trust that Arda kept sending her way (normally he considered such powerful manipulation rude in the extreme, but any port in a storm), but she had apparently decided that she was in no immediate danger from the vampire across the table, though she had a deep underlying air of suspicion when she looked at Arda, as if he must be guilty of something and it was only a matter of time before she found out what. He thought that she probably wasn't even aware of it.

"Well," he said matter-of-factly, "the beginning is usually the best place to begin a story."

"That's just it, though." she said with a sigh that seemed to come from deep within her chest. "I'm not even sure where the beginning would be, not in something as crazy as this."

"Let's start simple then." Arda leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. "Where are you from? And how exactly did you get here?

She shot him another glance, then her eyes softened again. "We didn't have a name for our planet, really. We just called it home. It was on the outskirts."

"The edge of civilization." He smiled with only one side of him mouth. "You get some very interesting trade out there."

A small chuckle, totally devoid of any good nature or humor, escaped her throat. "You can say that again."

There was a moment of silence, and Arda sensed her hesitation was not because she didn't want to continue, but because she was thinking of exactly _how_. He sat in silence and waited for her to speak.

"I didn't know that our home was on the outskirts, or even that there were such things." She said finally, eyes glued to a spot on the table in front of her as if it held the secrets of the universe. "Not until recently, anyway. It was just home, and that was all we wanted or needed."

"We?"

"My parents. Our little colony. I didn't know we were a colony, because it wasn't an important part of our lives. A few generations ago, ten people set out from a planet in some huge empire," She said the words as if what empire or whose meant less than nothing to her. "They started their own colony on a desert planet that eventually became the place I grew up in." She paused for only a second. "There were maybe one hundred people there. Warriors, farmers, tradesmen, our own society, our own world. Nothing touched us, and we never looked past the sky of our planet again. They were the world to me. And more."

A single tear slid out of one eye, and that, more than anything else, made the vampire's eyes widen in amazement. Her face was as rigid and emotionless as a granite block, but that one tear said more than any expression could.

"Then _it_ came. And killed them all." 

When Uubu opened his eyes, he saw nothing but blue sky. No clouds. The air was slightly thinner than it should have been, and based on that fact, and the cold tile he felt under his back, he deduced before he was even really completely conscious that he was at the Lookout.

He sat up slowly, but even so, a huge wave of dizziness and nausea threatened to send him back down again. He shut his eyes momentarily and let it pass, then opened them again.

As he had expected, he was looking at the white, almost too perfect expanse of the residence of whoever happened to be serving as Kami at present. The current god of earth, Dende, stood there in the flesh, slightly to his right. The namek that had been a boy when he first took the job of Kami was now fully grown, and almost as tall as Goku. He was gazing at Uubu with a look of concern etched across his kind, still too innocent face, and Uubu wasn't sure why, though the idea tickled the back of his brain maddeningly.

Then, when he glanced to his left, saw his sensei, the man who came closer to being his father than anyone ever had, and also saw that Goku's eye had gone blue and purple and was beginning to swell. Just like that, the trance, the strange intrusion, and finally, that hateful and final assault on his brain that had cause his to lash out and hit his teacher in blind malice came back to his mind with a snap that was almost audible. 

"Goku-sensei." He said, eyes wide, not sure what to say or how to react. What had just happened to him was so alien, so totally unknown, that for the moment he had no idea how to cope with it. So he just stared, and waited for someone to speak.

Although the person who did was out of Uubu's vision at the moment.

"Well, it's about time you woke up." Vegeta's voice echoed slightly off the tile floor and high marble buildings of the Lookout. Uubu tuned his head back in the direction of the voice, and saw the saiyajin prince leaning against a pillar, staring off into the flawless blue sky. Vegeta turned his head slightly to face Uubu. 

"Normally, I would be the last person on the Kami-forsaken world to say anything about meaningless violence," The smile was not on his face, or even in his voice, but it seemed to be there, far below the surface, somehow. "But I really must know, since you're all just sitting there like statues. Exactly why did you punch Kakarott in the face?"

Uubu turned his head back to face forward. Why? How the hell did he even begin to explain this?

"More importantly," Goku's voice was compassionate and sounded a bit worried, "Why did you start screaming and throwing yourself around like you were being tortured? What _happened_?"

Uubu had faced Goku when he began to speak, and now he looked down at the tile between his feet again. 

"I…" he took a deep breath and let it out. "I was meditating, just like always, sensei. But something was there. I felt an alien presence, something that just didn't belong." He told them what had happened, how the voice had fist told him to kill and maim, then demanded it, and finally, tried to make him and take control against his will.

"I don't think whatever is was… I don't think it was strong enough. Or maybe it was too far away. Or something." He sighed. "But…. It felt so strange. It was painful to even try to resist it, or ignore it."

Dende and Goku looked at each other for a brief second.

"Uubu," Dende said an instant later, "I know it's strange, but I think it might be best…" he paused, hesitant. "it might be best if you didn't try to meditate for a while. Just until we find out more about this."

Goku's pupil didn't reply. In truth, he didn't know what to say. Of course this was a dangerous situation, and an almost unknown one at that. But meditation was such a part of his daily training and life that he wasn't sure at all about giving it up totally, even for one day. He felt as Goku would feel if someone told him to give up fighting. But, if that was what it took….

"Okay." He said. "That sounds like the smartest thing to do. But…." He stood up, his legs still feeling like used chewing gum, but usable. "How in the world are we going to find out what it is that did that to me?"

It was Goku who answered. "I could talk to King Kai about it. If anyone would know, he probably would. In any case, he might have some advice on what we should do, and how we can go about finding who or whatever it is that did this."

Uubu nodded. He had learned enough from Goku to know that Kaio-sama, however many corny jokes he told, was also very wise, and also very, very old. He knew things, and had seen things in the vast universe that they had never known or dreamt of.

"Okay." Goku said. "No time like the present. Let's go."

Uubu shifted his position slightly and stood by his sensei's side. 

"Hey, Vegeta, you wanna join us?" Goku asked.

"I suppose." The prince said, as he too walked over to stand beside Goku. "It will be more exciting than waiting here to see how it turns out."

Goku had become much more skilled with the instant transmission technique over the years. He didn't even need to touch a person anymore, usually. He let his aura manifest itself very slightly, and intertwined it in an action that was now almost reflex with Vegeta and Uubu's ki. Then, there was a flash and a rush of energy as all three warriors were transformed into a mass of light particles, and flew across not only light years of space, but into the plane of the dead as well. 

When Goku opened his eyes a split second after he had closed them, he was staring into the startled face of King Kai.

"_It_ killed them all?" Arda looked questioningly across the table the Mia, whose countenance now so resembled a block of wood. One tear had been shed, and apparently one tear was one more than she meant to shed. She wiped it away swiftly with the back of one hand, skin pale from long travel in space, away from the sun of any world. 

"Yes." She said. "There was no rhyme or reason to it. One day a huge ball of light came out of the sky. No warning, nothing dramatic. We thought it was a ship, since we did get travelers from time to time. Usually they were peaceful, but sometimes they were, how did you put it? Interesting trade." The humorless laugh escaped again, like a bird leaping from a suddenly open cage before it can be caught. 

"But it wasn't either." He said. He hadn't read her mind, but she wasn't guarding her thoughts either. He knew it was so.

"No." she said. "It wasn't even a ship. I'm not sure what it was." And now, the fear that had been gone without even leaving a shadow was back in her face, just behind the anger that was there as well. This time, she seemed to have forgotten about trying to hide it or push it away. "It was a thing, almost humanoid. In shape, anyway. It was all in white, and it had white hair. It's eyes were empty." Her voice trembled, and Arda could see the thing she spoke of in her mind's eye. 

It was indeed in white, but flowing, pure robes, not like the girl's graying rags. It's hair was short and looked like it had been cut with a lawnmower, sticking out every which was. It's eyes had no pupils or irises, and they seemed too wide, much too big for the gaunt face, as did it's mouth, which was lined with small sharp teeth. He could see why she had feared him. The thing, with it's white skin and evil features, did look a bit like a vampire. But it wasn't. he knew that, even if she wasn't so sure.

And there was something else, something he could see if he dug into her mind. But she would come to it.

"The warriors set out to where they thought it landed." She said, "Just in case it was something hostile. We weren't a race of fighters, or anything, but our warriors were strong. Anyway, they went to see."

"Only it found them first." Her voice cracked very slightly and she stopped.

"One of them was my father." She said. "No one really expected any trouble, but that thing…. It killed them all. And they found our settlement soon enough."

Arda sensed that she was about to tell him what he had sensed further back in her mind, but right now he was more concerned that Mia would tell her tale. From the way it was pouring from her mouth, and her mind, he judged that she had probably never told anyone, since it happened. 

"They?" he asked, puzzled. "Who were the others?"

She shook her head slightly. "There was only one other, and he was just a little bug looking squirt. Just stood around and laughed while the thing did all the damage." 

Arda leaned back in his chair and pondered this information. He couldn't identify any one element of her story that hadn't happened in one form or another on all sorts of planets since the beginning of space travel, but something still felt genuinely wrong. Whether it came from her mind or his own intuition was questionable, but it was there all the same.

"My dad had been teaching me to fight for years." She said. "But I was still a few cycles away from coming of age and joining the warriors. When the scouts came back and said that all the warriors were dead…. I guess I went a little nuts. At first I tried to go find whatever killed them, but my mother wouldn't let me go. If I hadn't listened to her…." Mia paused, only for a moment. "If I had just gone to fight that thing, maybe I could have died a noble death like the rest of them."

"It didn't take them long to find us, like I said."

Her words stopped. But the images, moving pictures more potent than any movie, pure memory, those poured forth so that he couldn't help but see as she saw them.

The crazed being in white, screaming over and over, "Shine!!", or as it was in the common language, simply "Die" in a high, screaming roar that couldn't have been made by any normal being. It moved like a vampire almost, without seeming to need to use it's muscles at all, just gliding through the air faster than the eye could see. It ripped limbs from the bodies of women and children as they tried to flee, screaming. Old men died choking on their own blood through their crushed throats. Young men tried to attack the thing with crude weapons, and farm implements, only to have their own tools turned back on them to rip and dismember. 

And finally only she, Mia, had been left. She had rushed out, throwing blows at it that were futile, trying to cut it with the sword that she had just attempted to sever Arda's head with. It slapped her aside easily, though the blow shattered her cheekbone and threw her over twenty feet through the air. 

It had been ready to finish her, he could see, when a high, evil sounding voice floated from behind it. Just the voice itself sounded sneaky and mean, weak on it's own, but full of venom. 

"No, don't kill her." It said, and from behind the monster floated a small being, barely three feet tall, wasted and withered. Arda wondered that it could move it looked so frail. It wore robes and an orange cape. A curious symbol was engraved on it's belt.

"Remember now, we must leave one alive wherever we go." The little creature said. "Someone to carry the tale and spread the word of our doings." As the words left his mouth, he held out his hand, and as if by magic, a small pod appeared, similar to the ones he saiyajin had used to conquer planets for Frieza.

Then he said something that chilled Arda's blood, and suddenly made the whole story much more alarming.

"Go, girl. Wherever you will, only tell those you meet about us. And say that we seek Son Goku!"

Then they vanished, leaving behind only the ruined planet, and the scraps of a place the girl had called home.

Arda was looking at the girl with a stare so penetrating that it shook her.

"You're sure?" he asked. "They said Son Goku?"

"Yes." She said. Her face was dark. "My ship finally broke down on a place called Frieza 912." She said. Arda nodded. A huge conglomeration of planets and people like the Cold empire couldn't be expected to totally disappear just because it's three highest monarchs were gone. Leaders would be replaced. 

"I learned there that a saiyajin named Goku had defeated the tyrant Frieza years ago." She said. "But as to what happened to him after that, no one could tell me." She sighed. "Some guys tried to rob me, or rape me, or both. I don't know, they didn't get past grabbing me in an alley before I killed them. I took their money, got a taxi ship to take me to the next planet I could find, and here I am."

She looked steadily at him, as if expecting a response, but for a moment he just sat there, staring off into space. It didn't add up, even though he could tell with only minimal mind reading that she was telling him the total truth. If someone was searching for Goku, why wouldn't they just go to earth? It wasn't like it was a hard place to find, really, and anyone who had sensed Goku's ki before would recognize it. Besides, the kis of the warriors on earth could be felt galaxies away.

But those questions weren't really important right now. The mortal girl sitting across from him was. He could at least do te smallest thing for her. Yes, he could do that.

"I know Son Goku." He said shortly.

"What!!?" she leapt up from the table, spilling what remained of her food, the stainless steel plate rattling on the floor, chair overturning. "Are you serious!? You have to take me to him!"

Arda nodded. "I will, if that's what you want. Maybe he'll know what it is that attacked you and killed your race. But first things first."

"Huh?" she looked confused.

"Why don't you come with me to my ship, and get some clean clothes, get cleaned up a little. Then, I can take you to Goku."

She tossed this over in her mind. All mistrust of Arda seemed to have dissolved like so much vapor as she told her story, and now she only wondered whether he could really help her, or whether it would be more profitable to continue on her own.

"Okay." She said finally. "I'll go with you."

He smiled. "Good." He reached across the table, and placed a hand on her shoulder. 

"This will fell a little weird." He said, and before she could protest, he put two fingers to his forehead, focussed on the biggest ki on the planet (which happened to be in his ship, and had come here with him), and they vanished.

Yet Another Author's Note: Okay…. If you don't know yet who or what the 'Thing in White' is, then go read my one shot fic "Shine". Or don't. It really doesn't make a difference one way or the other as far as this story goes.

Now, if you don't know who the little weird scrawny guy is with him, you haven't paid enough attention to your DBZ. However, if for some reason you still don't know, you'll find out in the next chapter, which will most likely be out in about a week and will (I promise!) have more action and less backstory.

Ta!

Rev. 


	3. Chapter Three

Fire and Ice   
  
Chapter Three:  
  
The wizard Babidi was by no stretch of the imagination a fool. He had made mistakes in the past, certainly. Underestimating the warriors of earth, and releasing a creature that he should have known was too stupid and too inherently evil to be controlled were his two greatest, and he did not intend to make these same mistakes again.  
  
His magic had grown now beyond his wildest hopes. In killing him, Majin Buu had done him that favor. For years he had prowled the depths of hell, finding great magicians and ancient sages, creatures that populated the strange corners of the afterlife like trapdoor spiders, waiting for someone unsuspecting and helpless to stumble their way.  
  
But he was neither unsuspecting, nor helpless. He had found them, and learned their secrets. Now he wished his father could see him, see what he had grown to be. He had in his power one of the most powerful being the physical world and the afterlife had ever known. Several, in fact, though the creature Shine, the enslaved Elemental, was really his prize.   
  
The room the small wizard stood in was dark, lit only by the faint glow of the crystal ball in front of him. On the Two opposite sides of the ball, two scenes were playing themselves out.   
  
One was Arda and the girl Mia, having just appeared in the vampire's ship. This interested him only in passing, because it was going exactly as he wanted with no additional help from him. It was the other scene he was focussed on, because it was a scene of his making. Goku, Uubu, and Vegeta, speaking with that worthless excuse for a god, the Kaio. Babidi felt far too much contempt for Goku's former teacher to attach the normal suffix of respect.  
  
His plan had worked perfectly so far, and though he had found Uubu to be slightly more resistant to the alien impulses than he had expected, it was nothing that his magic could not handle.  
  
Babidi smiled to himself in a way that contained absolutely no good cheer, and sent the small telepathic impulse out that would summon his Shine from it's sleep. It was time to put his plan, the work of revenge, into action. Get Goku away from the earth, get him with as few of his friends as possible.   
  
Babidi was confident. He had set the board in his favor, and now it was time for checkmate.  
  
When Arda and Mia appeared in the ship, the girl immediately fell against the table, legs like rubber. Her eyes were almost comically wide.   
  
"Holy shit." Her voice was strained.  
  
"Yeah," Arda said distractedly. "Takes a little getting used to."  
  
The room was small, actually the vampire's own, and comfortable. There was a table of a dark colored, smooth wood, with two chairs to match. Next to it, against the wall of the small quarters, was a bed, neatly made and apparently not much used.  
  
"Make yourself comfortable." Arda said, waving to the furniture. "I have a few things to take care of with the ship, and then we have a lot to talk about."  
  
Before she had a chance to reply, he walked through the door and shut it behind him.  
  
When he was on the other side, he leaned against it and heaved a deep sigh. The easygoing, I-don't-have-a-care-in-the-world look melted from his face as he did, replaced by one of deep concern.   
  
Things were very strange. Hearing the name of Son Goku from a total stranger was one thing, but the rest.... this was just crazy. The wizard Babidi, now there was a vile, evil little creature. He had seen the thing once, from far off, but had seen no reason to get any closer. The universe was full of cheap little magicians like that.  
  
But apparently this one had become something more of a threat.  
  
And of course, he still had to worry about the sleeping Osiris, a much less civil vampire and a much stronger one than he. Osiris may have been younger, but he was different. Arda had lasted for three thousand years and more because he was totally at peace with himself, and had learned to be amused and contented with life. Osiris, however, had survived for two thousand years only because constant carnage kept him amused. He hated himself, and everyone else. At least, on the surface.  
  
And so, Arda had to ask himself, what might happen if he woke up from a Long Sleep to find a mortal on his ship?  
  
Well, he was fairly certain that he could keep Osiris from killing her, if it came to that. He really hoped it didn't come to that. He couldn't very well just leave her on this planet, could he? Unlike most vampires who had lived for so long, compassion was not lost on him.  
  
He would have to get her to Goku, or at least Kaio-sama. One of them would know how to proceed.  
  
He had no sooner come to this conclusion when he heard a sound. It sounded as if it came from far, far away, but he recognized it perfectly. And it sent chills deep into his chest.  
  
Paparapapa   
  
Then Mia let out a cry, whether of rage or fear he couldn't tell, and didn't care. He spun, wrenched the door open, and bolted back into the room.  
  
It took the three of them together about fifteen minutes to explain to King Kai in detail exactly what had happened to Uubu, and to outline their speculations on what could have been the cause. The whole time they were speaking, the god's face grew more and more grave.   
  
When they were finished, he heaved a deep breath, and looked at each of them in turn.  
  
"I've been watching things." he said in a flat tone, very different from his normal voice. "For the past few months, things have been happening near the wastelands. A spirit. I didn't recognize it."  
  
Goku looked at his teacher shrewdly. "But you know something now."  
  
Kaio-sama nodded. "I think I do. I should have goven you all a warning about this when the Golden Moon appeared. Obviously, not everyone who got out of hell would be dumb enough to just rush out and take you guys head on...."  
  
The god suddenly stopped in mid sentance, and screamed. He clapped his hands to the sides of his head, as if warding off a loud, offensive noise. And all three of the Z fighters felt it, heard a faint echo of a telepathic cry.  
  
"What is it!?" Vegeta jumped to his feet (they had all been sitting). "You old fool, what is it!?"  
  
Kaio-sama straightened, and his face seemed to have gone blank and pale.  
  
"It's Arda." his voice shook. "He's being killed, I think."  
  
When he rushed back into the room, at first he didn't even know what had happened. The small, comfortable sleeping quarters had grown from the size of a camper to the size of a cathedral. His comfortable furnishings were nowhere in sight, and the roof shot up what seemed a hundred feet.  
  
"What the hell..." he muttered, then caught sight of the cause.  
  
On the far side of the huge room floated the wizard, inside a protective magic bubble. Next to him stood the monstrous Shine, the thing in white. It was grinning in a way that was happy and yet utterly mindless. In it's one outstretched hand it held Mia by the throat. She was thrashing madly, kicking at the thing and trying to rip it's fingers from her throat, but it was a losing battle.   
  
Her sword lay on the floor, a few feet beyond her reach.  
  
"We can fix that." Arda said to himself, and with a small telepathic flip, he sent the short sword flying up off the ground.  
  
Whatever else could be said about her, Mia had the reflexes of a warrior. Her hand was around the hilt of her weapon almost before Arda could see it, and in a flash of movement, she grabbed the arm that held her throat and rammed her sword through the wrist.  
  
The Shine monster screamed like a caged animal, and immediately dropped her from his hold. She scrambled back, sword in hand, the thing's blood (it was shiny black, so who knew what it was, really) dripping from her weapon and from it's arm.  
  
Babidi did not seem to be in the least bit worried.  
  
"Long introductions and senseless dramatics are one of the mistakes I don't care to repeat." The wizard said with a smirk. "Shine, if you would be so good as to kill that vampire."  
  
Arda could feel power just baking off of that thing in waves, power, but not ki. It didn't seem to have any ki. So when it lunged at him across the huge room, he knew it was toying with him.  
  
The thing was coming at him, but not at near the speed it was capable of. It was testing him then, playing, most likely on previous orders from it's master. He didn't think this thing was smart enough to strategize on it's own.  
  
Well, he would show it that he was not to be played with.  
  
As it neared him, he leapt nimbly into the air, and landed with one foot on top of it's head. He pushed down, shoving Shine off balance, and using the momentum he had gained, swung around and delivered a hard kick to the neck.  
  
Shine flew directly into the wall, and smashed a hole in it, revealing the framework and outer hull of the ship.  
  
Oh, hell. Arda cursed inwardly. The walls of Osiris' ship had been made of kachim, the strongest known metal in the universe, virtually unbreakable. Whatever Babidi had turned it into, it was not nearly so strong. If they weren't careful, they could all be sucked out into space.  
  
His thought was cut off when Shine's fist hit him in the mouth.  
  
He flew backward, catching himself on his feet before he lost his balance. He hadn't even seen the thing move! How the hell had it gone so fast!?  
  
It was coming again. He sidestepped the blow intended for his face again, and tried to kick. But the monster caught his foot deftly in one hand.  
  
Shit.  
  
He was listed and swung, faster than he could see, and then pain exploded over his entire body. The thing hand slammed him into the wall.   
  
Not kachim, he thought. But plenty hard enough, all the same.  
  
This thought had just gone through his head when he was swung again, pulled from the wall by the same grip on his leg. Helpless, he whistled through the air, and this time was slammed into the floor. He couldn't hold back the scream as he felt ribs crack along with the floor itself.  
  
Then the hold on his foot vanished, and he heard the Shine monster scream like a wounded beast. He sat up, ribs screaming their protest, and rolled to his feet just in time to see Mia yank her sword out of the monster's chest and sink it in again.  
  
He laughed out, more a cry of hope than a laugh. That girl had guts!  
  
She pulled her sword from it's body yet again and then leapt back beside him as blood gushed from it's wounds. It didn't look angry, or hurt, however. It was simply looking at them with that same insane grin, as if to tell them it was their turn to roll the dice, so let's not waste time.  
  
"Come on!" Mia said. Right now, any fear she had felt before was gone. The light of battle shone in her eyes like fire. "Come on, if we gang up on it maybe we can beat it!"  
  
Arda looked at her, then at it. He shook his head.   
  
"No, I've got it." he said slowly. The fierce joy he had felt when Mia stabbed the creature had drained from his face, which now looked, so white and hard, like marble. "I'll get this thing. But you might want to stand back."  
  
Mia looked as if she was going to protest, but he didn't give her a chance. On the lapel of his coat, threaded through like any pin, was a silver needle, about three and a half inches long. It was tipped in gold on both ends. He pulled this from the cloth, and held it in his right hand.  
  
Suddenly, it sprang from Three inches to six feet, in the blink of an eye. A needle to a combat staff, slightly taller than it's owner. This was so strange that Mia's words died in her mouth, and she took a step back.  
  
Arda gritted his teeth, and his muscles clenched. He didn't like this technique, it was a horrible drain. But it most definitely did it's job.  
  
"Kaio-ken!!"  
  
Red ki like licking flames suddenly roaared into life around him, throwing the girl back several feet. As it did, he wasted no time. He leapt into the air, toward Shine, ki leaving a burning trail.  
  
The monster seemed to welcome him with it's shark's grin.  
  
As he moved, he gripped the staff low on one end with both hands. He drew back, taking careful aim and mustering every bit of ki at his command.   
  
When he was no more than three feet from the monster, he swung it hard, like a baseball player hitting a home run.  
  
The Shine creature wasn't that smart, as was already proven. It did not have the brainpower to understand that it's opponent had suddenly become much stronger. When it saw the pole swinging at it's face, it tried to catch it.  
  
The staff hit Shine's fingers, and there was a muffled crunch as they all snapped. The blow, however, didn't stop. It continued, Shine's smashed fingers with it, into the thing's face.  
  
There was a sickening crunch like someone taking a sledge hammer to a sack full of china, and the Monster's whole head caved in from the face like a rotten jack-o-lantern. There was a terrific spray of black blood, and the monster flew backward and hit the floor, not moving.  
  
Arda dropped from the air, Kaio-ken aura vanishing as his feet hit the floor. His face was covered in blood-sweat, and he was breathing heavily.  
  
He stared at the creature. It wasn't moving.  
  
Suddenly Mia's arms were flung around his neck, and she was creaming in his ear. His body felt drained, but the girl's happy cries were infectious. He smiled. He had done it.  
  
Then the wizard's laughter cut through theirs like a knife.  
  
"Come come now. You must realize that my monsters are not that easy to get rid of."  
  
And to Arda's horror, made worse by the fatigue, he saw that the thing was indeed moving. It was getting to it's feet! And somehow much more frightening, it's head seemed to be reshaping itself, like a cartoon character who's been run over.   
  
That insane grin was still pasted across it's distorted features.  
  
Arda, feeling helpless, did the only thing he could think to do.  
  
KAIO-SAMA!!! he sccreamed telepathically to the one person who he knew would hear, HELP!!! 


	4. Chapter Four

Author's Note: Okay, yes, I realize that this chapter has been about a million years in the making, but you must believe that it was the fault of my computer, not me. I had through chapter six written and proofread, but unfortunately, the comp I stored them on crashed, and I haven't been able to get it working again. So, re-write time! Enjoy, and thanks for your patience.

Chapter Four:

At first everything was a blur. It was dark where he was, and he was ragingly thirsty. The thirst that was so much more than wanting water, the thirst that cried out from every vein of his being.

Then he heard it. Like a slap in the face, the telepathic scream lanced through his brain.

HELP!!!

His eyes snapped wide instantly, total awareness flooding him. He was in the secret coffin-like panel under the floor of the ship he had stolen from Arda long ago. He had been sleeping. For how long, he didn't know. A week, a month, a decade. Who knew? And right now it didn't even matter.

There was something on his ship. Something that had no business being here. Something very, very strong, by the feel of it. Also very wrong. It was like nothing he had ever felt.

And that had been Arda who had screamed. He was sure of it. After knowing that voice for thousands of years, it would be hard to mistake it.

The panel that opened to let him out of this little chamber would be to slow. In a blaze of power, he blasted out of the floor, moving with supernatural speed. His clothes were still battle worn from the cataclysmic events of the golden moon a decade before, but his eyes were bright blue chips of ice, body tensed and full of power.

The vampire Osiris raced for the fight.

"It's Arda." Kaio-sama said, his face pale, downcast and frightened. "He's being killed, I think."

"What!?" Goku, Vegeta, and Uubu snapped at once. "What do you mean?" Goku grabbed the god by the shoulders. "What's going on!?"

The Kaio said nothing, only stared off into space, as if seeing something that none of them could. Goku was about to give the old god a shake again when his eyes cleared and he seemed to once more compose himself.

"Goku, please take your hand off me." When the saiyajin did as he asked, Kaio-sama brushed his robe off and clasped his hands behind his back. "It's okay now, I think. Arda will be alright for the moment."

"What happened?" Goku asked again, the anxiety slightly less in his voice, but not gone entirely. "King Kai, you have to tell us!"

"I think I'd better start from where we left off, if you want to understand. Trust me," he held his hand up as Goku opened his mouth to protest once more. "He'll be fine for now. But we should hurry."

Throughout this exchange, Vegeta had said nothing, knowing that if Kakarott couldn't get the information out of Kaio-sama then no one would. Uubu had been respectfully silent, allowing his sensei to do the talking. But now the boy/man burst out.

"Kaio-sama, how can you be sure? How do you know?"

King Kai looked down, considering, then back up. "All of you, sit." He said, neglecting to answer Uubu's question altogether. "Arda will be fine for the moment, and this is something you need to hear."

The three warriors looked at each other briefly, then sat on the grass resignedly.

Kaio-sama heaved a deep sigh.

"So." He said, almost conversationally. "You all remember Babidi."

The Shine monster's head had not even fully reformed itself when it charged at him. The thing's speed was phenomenal. Arda leapt back, trying to evade a blow he couldn't even see. But it hit him anyway, bowling him over like a brick wall. We was flung back and into the wall, the monster's fist buried in his gut.

Blood gushed from his mouth, and the pain in his already broken ribs was beyond enormous. But even through it, he noticed the small hissing sound that he dreaded. The hissing of air through a narrow crack, directly behind his head. Being sucked out. The walls were beginning to give.

Mia leapt to battle immediately, behind the creature, sword flashing as she flayed the thing's back open again and again. Shine took no notice of this whatsoever. Its fist pushed in even further, then opened and shifted. The long claws on the end of its hand suddenly snarled into his flesh, grasping for purchase. They dug in, ripping and twisting. Arda screamed as his strange blood gushed from his body to cover the thing's arm all the way to the elbow. It pattered on the floor like rain.

_Is this it?_ His vision was already beginning to tunnel. If he passed out, this thing could kill him. _After all these centuries, all the things I've lived through, is this how I'm going to die? On Osiris' stolen ship with my intestines falling on my boots?_

Maybe so. The pain was beginning to fade, and his hands that had been grasping at the monster's arm slipped off. His body seemed light, far away. The room was getting dim, and he could barely hear Mia's cries of fury. Or the monster's insane cackle.

_Oh, well. _He thought. _At least I died fighting something evil. How much more can an undead monster really ask for?_

He was almost unconscious when there was a roar, and a blinding flash of fire. The door to the chamber blew off like a bullet, it's metal shape twisted horribly out of true, a wave of flame behind it. Adrenaline rushed into him when he felt the ki, and knew only one person who that could be.

The vampire Osiris flew into the room wreathed in his own telepathically created fire, a burning comet of an immortal. Shine had hardly cocked his head at the disturbance before it was seized by a hand like the maw of a machine and flung like a rag doll across the room. Its cry of rage was piercing as it hit the floor and rolled almost to its master's feet.

"Sit." Osiris said shortly, lowering Arda to the ground.

Then he turned without another word and charged at his enemy.

Shine was on its feet almost before it hit the ground, and Osiris' fist that might have taken the thing's head off instead slammed into its arm, raised in a block. There was a loud _boom_, and ki reverberated across the room from the point of impact. More minute cracks began to appear and snake their way across the floor and walls.

With the monster's tearing claws out of his gut, the wound in Arda's stomach had already slowed to a trickle and was beginning to close. His head still felt light and sick, but he could see the room clearly. Mia stood next to him, her eyes wide, mouth slightly open as they watched the fight.

Osiris didn't pause for a second; as soon as his first blow was blocked, he tried for a second, to the abdomen. The creature twisted it's spine in a grotesque direction that no normal being could, and the vampire's fist whooshed through thin air. Even so, he didn't lose his concentration. Before he had fought with the likes of Goku and his sons, someone evading him this easily would have surprised him so much that it might have left an opening, but no more. The lesson that there were others in the universe even stronger than he had been well learned and not forgotten.

He opened his palm, flat and less than six inches from Shine's stomach. Out of seemingly nowhere, a flood of electric blue ki exploded and this connected, sending the monster flying across the room and into the wall. This time the entire room rattled, and the sound of air hissing out of the room was plainly audible.

Arda gulped uneasily. He and Osiris could survive easily in the vacuum of space, but it would be unpleasant. And Mia most assuredly would die. Osiris wouldn't care about that, but he did.

There was no time to say anything, however. Shine had bounced back as quickly as before, and shot at the vampire with the same maniacal grin as ever. It flew into a flurry of blows, raining them down so quick and hard that Osiris could not even counter. He was blocking as fast as possible, both fighter's arms and legs a blur, but suddenly it didn't look so good. Soon Osiris would resort to what he always did in a situation like this; the sheer volume of ki in his body. A huge area blast would knock the monster off, sure. But it would destroy the entire ship as well.

_I have to get Mia out of here..._

They all looked at Kaio-sama, waiting for him to continue. But his face had gone blank again after saying their old wizard enemy's name, as if he were watching something in his mind.

"Why don't they run…?" he muttered to himself.

"What are you talking about!?" Goku was on his feet in front of the Kai. "Kaio-sama, tell me! What's wrong!?"

The god's attention snapped back, and he seemed to focus.

"Goku, you and Vegeta put your hands on my back. I have to point you in the right direction, and you'll feel the kis of Arda and Osiris."

"Osiris!?" Vegeta was on his feet too. "Is he the one doing the killing!!?" the prince's face spelled cold murder.

"No, no. he's actually helping, if you believe that. But I think that his help might kill them anyway, if he doesn't watch it. Now, I want you two to deal with the situation that you find and bring the two vampires and the girl back here."

"What girl?" Vegeta's look of malice had dissolved into puzzlement.

Kaio-sama suddenly looked angry. "Will you stop asking questions and just do as I say!! People's lives are hanging in the balance here!"

Without another word, Goku put his hand on the god's back, and clasped Vegeta's in his own, not waiting for the haughty saiyajin to find some sort of comeback. With King Kai's heightened ki sense, he felt the powers of both vampires right away. He focused and used the small telepathic twitch he had become so used to, and he and Vegeta vanished.

As it turned out, Osiris was not the one to tear the room apart and send them all hurtling into space. He had noticed what was happening as soon as he let out the first ki blast, and knew that he would have to find another way. Luckily, he had help.

Arda was far from totally healed, but he knew that Shine was so focused on Osiris that he would be unnoticed for the moment. He picked up his needle staff and extended it, one hand still held protectively over his stomach. Then he flew.

Osiris was beginning to think that he wouldn't be able to beat this thing under the conditions of the room when out of nowhere Arda's staff came crashing down into the top of the creature's head, smashing it in from above. He had no time to be grateful, so instead he utilized the second he had been given and gathered himself mentally. The irises of his eyes began to pinwheel, and he sent the Fire at Shine with everything he had.

Flames burst into being, the creature's robes on fire and the force of the telepathic power driving it back, flailing about and screaming in surprise.

But its body was not burning. He had sent the Fire into the very center of it with all his considerable psychic strength, and only its robe was burning.

That scared him. He had never seen a living creature, no matter how strong, that would not burn when set aflame. Some could fight back his power, but once on fire, they always burned until dead.

Shine had stopped screaming. It had been surprised, but now it only stood. It was still on fire, the flames licking up from its torso to caress its face and hair. Still smiling. As if the flames felt good.

"Oh, shit." Arda muttered. "Oh, shit shit shit."

At that exact second, Goku and Vegeta appeared in the middle of the room.

They looked at the vampires and the mortal girl with the sword. They looked back. Shine stood there and let its clothes burn, seemingly waiting for someone to try to fight it.

"You…" Arda said breathlessly. "Goku."

"Goku!?" Mia suddenly snapped to attention, much more interested.

"SHINEEEE!!!!!"

The creature was not the patient sort. It blazed across the room at the newcomers, intent on killing.

Goku and Vegeta wasted no time. As soon as they saw the thing coming for them, both blazed into beings of pure gold, and began firing ki blasts at the monster in rapid bursts.

"No, stop!!" Arda yelled, but it was too late.

The blasts tore chunks out of Shine as they connected, black ooze flowing from the wounds and writhing in the air, looking as if it had a mind of its own. But the blasts also tore through the walls and ceiling, and even as Shine was being driven back, the entire back wall gave way and crumbled.

Suddenly the room was a wind tunnel, driving them all out into space. Arda grabbed onto Mia as soon as the wall collapsed. The other's held on with their ki.

Babidi was being pulled back, despite the shield barrier that surrounded him. The monster looked at its master, then back at the others with a grimace. It was the first expression they had seen on its face besides a shark-grin. It was spoiling to continue the fight. But it knew who its master was.

_To Kaio-sama's! NOW! You get the girl and I'll get the others!_ Goku sent the message telepathically to Arda, who nodded.

Goku grabbed Vegeta's wrist in one hand and Osiris' in the other, and they all vanished from sight leaving the wizard and his monster behind.

Other Author's Note: Now, in the next chapter (which is in fact written, so no million year wait this time), some of the larger elements of the story are going to come into play. By which, I mean, this fic is going to be something of a crossover. There are going to be characters and elements from Naruto, Hellsing, and Stephen King's Dark Tower series, as well as others. Not to brag, but I think this story is going to get really good. But just so everyone knows, there's going to be some other things here besides DBZ. And I'll explain things through the story, so you don't have to know a thing about any of the other series to enjoy.

Ta!

Rev


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five:

The confusion that resulted from the two saiyajin, two vampires and one mortal girl appearing out of nowhere back on Kaio-sama's planet was relatively short. They all seemed to realize that they were dealing with a matter of some importance.

"I'll explain everything now." King Kai said as they began to start in with the questions. He had known they would. Mortals (even the vampires he thought of as mortals, short-time creatures who would one day suffer real physical death) were never content to wait for what they wanted.

One by one, they all sat. All except Osiris. He walked off a bit and leaned in the shade of the tree. He stood there, saying nothing and making everyone nervous. None of the others actually trusted him, despite the fact that he had made no hostile move toward any of them since the battle against Morgoth.

The others arranged themselves in a circle around Kaio-sama, and when Mia began to speak to Goku hesitantly, he gently cut her off. "The story of Babidi's first encounter with Goku is an interesting one, but we don't have much time for it right now. You'll get all the answers you need in the course of time."

She seemed to want to contest this, but didn't. Instead she leaned back on her arms and waited for the god to speak. After a moment, he did.

"It all started with a visit about four years ago." King Kai said slowly. The others had never seen him look quite so grave as he did now. "A visit from a being called Gan."

"I can't describe the experience to you. Gan is… I guess some would call Gan The God. It is from he that existence came, and his home is at the top of the Tower."

Kaio-sama sighed. This part was hardest. How was he supposed to convey the sense of being near that being of light, the simple force and aura that came from the creator. Simply being visited by Gan was something he had only heard of in the most distant, whispered legends. And one day Gan had come. First as a great white dragon, then a young man. They had spoken for a long time.

"He talked in riddles." King Kai said. "He did many things. He actually gave me back my planet and restored me to physical life." No one had even noticed before that the Kaio's planet they were now sitting on had been blown up by Cell, and was now back. "His words were vague. He told me that the King had arisen, bodiless but still very dangerous."

"I didn't understand then, but I do now. I wish by all that is that I had understood sooner. I suppose you don't know what I'm talking about." He looked around at the faces focused on his with something like dismay. There was so _much _that they didn't know. How was he supposed to tell them all of it?

Well, he would have to try.

"You guys have fought to save your planet time and time again." Kaio-sama looked at Goku in particular when he said this. "You fought for your homes, those dear to you. You fought to save your planet, even if it meant dying for your loved ones." His eyes flicked briefly to Vegeta, then back to Goku. "Sometimes you even fought when there was nothing at stake that was dear to you, simply because it was what you knew to be right."

"Well, now I'm going to have to ask you to do it all again. Fight for those things, and much more. This time it's not just earth, not just our galaxy, and not even our universe. This time, _everything _is at stake. Every world, every universe, every level of the Dark Tower is hanging on you."

"Kaio-sama…." Goku interrupted hesitantly, "what do you mean? And how does this tie in with Babidi, and that creature we fought?"

King Kai heaved another deep and weary sigh. "Look, Goku, this is going to be a very long story, so please bear with me and don't interrupt. I'll tell you everything I know."

The saiyajin nodded silently and subsided.

"Okay. I guess the best example to start with would be Trunks. Not our Trunks, but the one that came from the world destroyed by the androids. The Bulma of that world, his mother, stumbled upon something amazing. Her time machine, as she called it, wasn't as much a time machine as it was like…. A needle. A needle that punched a hole through reality and onto the next level of the Dark Tower."

They said nothing, but Kaio-sama could tell by their faces that they knew nothing of what he was trying to tell them. He rubbed his temples. It was trying, this. He had never had to explain so much about the very framework of existence to mortals. Couldn't, really. It was against the rules. He was breaking them now only in the last stretch. This was where everything would be won or lost.

"Alright, I see I'm going to have to back up. Now, you all have lived with the concept that there is nothing beyond our universe, or at least nothing that can effect us. In that belief you are drastically wrong."

"There are billions upon billions of worlds, each universe complete unto itself. But they, including our universe, afterlife, and hell, are all only one miniscule part of reality. All universes are held to each other, one above the other, spinning together in perfect harmony on the spindle of creation, the home of Gan. This is the Dark Tower. All that you love, all that you hate, all that _is, _flows from it. It exists in all worlds. In some it is an immortal tiger, in some a rose. In others, it is a great white dragon. In a very few, it actually exists as a great dark tower. But it is what fuels life and power in all worlds, and it is everything, the very groundwork of reality."

King Kai looked around him, and though they comprehended the mechanics of what he was saying, he didn't think they really understood. They didn't see the enormity of world upon worlds. But as long as he tried…

"Now, running parallel to the Tower, through all world, are six beams of energy. These hold all the worlds and bind them to the Tower. They are the last and most powerful true white magic in existence, and they keep all from falling into Din-Tah the great furnace that exists at the Tower's base. There has been great labor for millennia uncounted by many beings to break the beams, and they almost succeeded in destroying all. Many evil, even more misled. Of the six beams that once were, only two now remain. They have been saved by another, for now, at the very brink of the abyss." He paused, took a breath.

"The creature whose madness and evil ambition almost brought the Tower to ruin was called the Crimson King, and it is this thing that will be your true enemy. What he was, when he came into being or from where, none know. He was removed from the physical world by those same who saved the two remaining beams, a party led by a great man named Roland. But taking his body from him was not sufficient to make an end of him. As it turns out, he is now quite as dangerous as ever. He is free from his prison in the Tower, and now he is searching for a body of his own, from the lowest hells to all the mortal planes."

"But…. Kaio-sama, if he doesn't have a body, what threat does he pose us?" Goku asked. "If he's only a pure spirit, he can't hurt us."

"Not true. He may not be able to hurt you directly, but spirits have their ways. They can speak to the living, and lend them their powers, if nothing else."

He looked around at the faces assembled near him, and wondered if one of them would stumble upon the answer, or if he would have to tell them.

He was about to do just that when Osiris spoke.

"It's Babidi, isn't it?" he asked. "That little thing has found this Crimson King, and made him his familiar."

Kaio-sama smiled very slightly. "Yes, exactly. I'm not sure of exactly when, but at some point while Babidi wandered after his escape from hell, he was contacted by, or called up, the Crimson King. I'm sure he didn't know what he was doing, but once it began there would be no stopping it. The King's powers have begun to meld with Babidi's, making the wizard even stronger. But if that were the only danger, it wouldn't be so bad. His slaves are new, but he you can beat again."

"Unfortunately, a powerful being like the Crimson King would never be content to work through another. He will slowly overwhelm Babidi, and assimilate him and take over his body. Very likely the process has already begun. And if he regains a physical body, I fear that he may be a foe beyond you all."

There was silence for nearly a full minute. Finally, Uubu, very self-conscious and speaking before his sensei, broke it.

"So, all you really want is for us to kill Babidi before that happens."

"Yes. You must find Babidi and kill him." He looked hard at Goku. "And I do mean that. Nothing but his death will rid us of him and the Crimson King. You have to do it before the King takes over completely. If that happens, I don't know what we will do. The Red King is murderous and totally insane. And if he merges with Babidi, he will be physical again, and his magic will be unstoppable."

Vegeta spoke up gruffly and to the point. "How long do we have before this happens?"

Kaio-sama shrugged. "Hard to say. Since we don't know exactly how long ago this began, or at what pace the King is working, there's no way to tell. Babidi is a very proud and self centered being. He may resist being controlled for a very long time. Or maybe no time at all."

Vegeta looked thoughtful, and spoke again. "If Babidi sees what this Crimson King is up to, if he realizes before it's too late, could he conceivably throw the spirit's influence off? Could he free himself?"

King Kai looked shocked. "Oh, no. if he tries something like that, the King would blow him out like a candle, and then simply take over his body, or try to."

"But then why doesn't he do that now!?" the prince looked baffled.

"Why?" Kaio-sama looked equally dumbfounded. "Why? Because to take Babidi's body by force would likely drive him totally insane and destroy any power he had. The Crimson King wants all the power he can get, and if that means waiting and moving slowly, he will do it."

Something seemed to strike Goku at that instance. "But if he's so strong anyway, what does he need Babidi for? Why is he worried?"

"Well, before he would only have had the reason all evil beings have; he wants more power simply for the sake of having it. He wants all he can get and more. But now, he has an even better reason."

"He has seen you all, through Babidi's eyes." He looked to Goku. "He has seen you, Goku, and recognized you for what you are, I have no doubt. An agent of the White, of good. You, if not these others. He knows in his heart that you will come to put an end to him. He is not above fear."

"There's one thing I don't understand." Arda spoke for the first time. "If he was killed once in his own body, what would the good be of killing Babidi? Won't he just go do the same thing to someone else?"

The barest suggestion of a smile showed on the Kaio's face. "He was not killed in his own body. The story is long, and not relevant at the moment, but suffice to say that he did not die. His body was simply… taken from him."

"Time is short, so let's stick to relevant information. Now, Babidi can't have known what the Crimson King was when their… collaboration began. Does he know now? I don't think so. He just knows that he has a new demon familiar, which is making him incredibly strong. And giving him new abilities, new ways to get slaves. He's been, somehow, pulling people from different levels of the tower and bending them to his will. And he's even created some new fighters."

"Which brings me to that awful monster, that thing. Shine." Mia shifted noticeably, and all seemed to shudder. "Kill it, and Babidi will be within your grasp."

"What is it?" Goku asked. "I mean, I've never seen anything like it. Me and Vegeta were blasting pieces of it off, and it didn't even pause. Actually, it was almost like it _liked _it." He paused. "If it hadn't gone to help Babidi, I think we'd still be fighting it right now."

Kaio-sama considered where to start. "Okay. Shine, as that thing is called, was once a spirit known as an elemental. Elementals are spirits that were never alive as physical beings. They are not gods, or angels, or demons. They are really hardly sentient in their natural form. When they come into being, many kinds of energy collect around a single particle, and when enough energy is concentrated together, it begins to live. Elementals cause storms, fire, rain. Anything. They are the power of the universe embodied in a spirit form."

"But somehow Babidi has perverted one of these calm, benign beings by entrapping it in flesh. One he had something physical to work on, I'm sure his magic didn't take long. Now he has a mindless killing machine more lethal even than Majin Buu ever was. This thing will never disobey him, and it will never stop."

"How do we kill it?" Vegeta asked.

The Kaio shrugged. "I assume the same way you killed Cell. Get rid of every particle of it, maybe it won't come back. To be honest, I've never seen anything remotely like it before."

"But when the time comes, you'll have to figure out something. Everything is resting on your shoulders now. I wish I didn't have to put this burden on you, only mortals. This is a fight the gods have waged for eternity. But now we have to turn to you, and if you can't do it, no one can."

With those words, the god turned and walked toward his house.

"I'll give you all some time to rest and talk before I send you on your way. Remember, you do have a choice."

He walked into his small house and shut the door behind him, leaving Goku, Vegeta, Uubu, Arda, Mia, and Osiris all staring at each other in shock.


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six:

There was silence, long silence, when Kaio-sama left them and walked into his house. No one said a word, no one seemed to be able to. What they had been told, all that had been explained to them, was sinking in digesting. The concepts that the Kaio had given them were so huge that they demanded this.

It was Goku who spoke first, of course.

"Guys, I don't know if I understand even half of what Kaio-sama told us." He stood, and the others began to slowly get to their feet as he continued. "But I guess that doesn't matter. I think we all know what we have to do."

"Yes, we do." Arda brushed a few errant blades of grass from his clothes. "I don't think Kaio-sama would ever lie to us, and if he's telling the truth, we can't turn away from this. To turn away would be to die ourselves. Besides," he smirked slightly, "This is what I've been doing for centuries, trying to do good. Now I guess I found what it was all for."

Goku looked at Vegeta. "Well?"

The prince rolled his eyes. "Do you even need to ask, Kakarott? I'm not going to let you go play the hero while I sit and wait."

Uubu's face was grim, set in stone, but his nervousness was visible underneath. "I'll go with my sensei."

Mia looked back and forth at the unfamiliar faces around her. In truth, she was hardly sure that this whole experience wasn't a dream. A few hours ago, she had been wandering around a spaceport she had never been to, wondering where she was going to find a meal, much less some sort of shelter for the night. Now she was with great warriors, the kind that she had hoped to _be _one day. She was standing with them on the pleasant grassy lawn of a god, and talking about saving the universe. No, _all _universes.

How could she say no?

"I'm in." she said simply. "I mean, I don't have anywhere else to go," she continued in a stammering voice when they all looked at her. "And I don't know… I can't leave now. I'm not sure what it is, but I have a feeling that I'm supposed to be here, that we all are. I don't know what it is, but I wouldn't leave here for the world."

Goku smiled. "I knew I could count on you guys."

"Well, there is one more of us to count on." Arda said, turning. "Hey, Osiris, you…."

He stopped.

Osiris was nowhere to be seen. The vampire was gone.

Enma-sama had never had a situation like this, not in his entire career in the afterlife. There had been scares, sure, and fights aplenty. But there had never been anything even remotely like this blue eyed hell-monster that was now tearing his office apart. And from the feel of the guy's power, this was only the most minute fraction of what he could do, if he felt like it.

Office demons were scattered everywhere, some unconscious, many more dead in pools of their own blood. Enma's huge desk was shattered into chunks in one corner. Enma himself was sitting in the rubble where he had fallen amidst the rubble, eyes wide, totally unsure of what to do. Had this man been dead, controlling him would have been simple. But he was not. He was physically alive, and that meant that it was a matter of simple strength. Minor points like how a living being had gotten here in the first place would have to be worried about later.

The vampire Osiris stood in the middle of the destroyed office, enveloped in a corona of blue ki. He was still for the moment, staring at Enma-sama coolly. That was the most frightening part, actually. He didn't even seem to become excited, not even when he had been in the midst of this wanton destruction. He had been perfectly cold.

"Now, I hope you're ready to be more reasonable." He said, only the slightest edge of irritation in his voice. "I want you to tell me how to get back to the mortal plane, and I want you to tell me now. Unless of course, you want me to continue."

Enma was torn between two decisions. He hadn't been this uncertain of what to do since he had been faced with the problem of sending Vegeta to earth to help against Majin Buu. And this time there was a raging maniac destroying his office, killing his helpers, and threatening to do the same to him.

He could continue to refuse, do his duty by the rules. Of course the man would kill him, probably much more slowly and creatively than he had disposed of the office demons. And who was to say that he wouldn't find his way back eventually, anyway? Of course, if he led this monster to the door, then he would have to live with himself. Live with the fact that he had turned this… thing loose.

As for Osiris himself, he had left quietly shortly before King Kai had disappeared into his house. He had heard enough to let him know what this was. He had helped save the universe once, from Morgoth, but looking back, he thought that that had been as much to save his own skin than anything else. He had known that he would have to fight Morgoth eventually. Now, he had absolutely no interest in saving the world. Let the world fend for itself.

"I… I…" Enma stammered. "I can't tell you that. I don't know how to get back to the mortal realm."

Osiris rolled his eyes. The old fool didn't even have the ability to mask his thoughts, not even a little. The lie might as well have been written on his face.

"You're lying to me. I'll give you one more chance." He glided across the room, and seized Enma by the collar, lifting the huge behemoth off the ground. "Tell me, or you will die like no one has ever died before." His voice was still cold, totally devoid of emotion.

Enma was actually shaking. This thing could read his mind, and he now saw what it was. Skin as white and translucent as alabaster, eyes that burned, psychic powers, superhuman power. There was a vampire here, a very ancient vampire. And it was going to kill him, and would probably just take the information it wanted from his mind beforehand. Why it was even bothering to ask him was a mystery. Perhaps was feeling emotion, after all. Perhaps amusement.

Enma, voice quivering, told him. "Go down the path about three miles. There is a door standing in the middle of nothing. Just say the name of where you want to go, and it will take you there. As long as it's on the mortal plane."

Osiris smiled. He could feel that the old demon was telling him the truth, and he hadn't even had to dig in his mind.

"Thank you. You've been of great service, and for that, you will not suffer a painful death."

Before Enma even had time to wonder what he meant, the irises of the vampire's eyes began to spin. Enma felt the heat in an instant, and then all went black as he burned.

Tienshinhan was a very unique human being, and the third eye in the exact center of his forehead was probably the least important reason. He was very calm and collected, for one thing. He was methodical and thought about his actions before he performed them. He seemed always silent, because he didn't speak unless he had something of importance to say. And his silence, his habit of watching and listening more than speaking, made him remarkably perceptive.

Of course, having a powerful psychic for a best friend didn't hurt matters, either.

Right now the man in question was standing at the edge of a very high cliff. Snow blew below, above, and all around him. He wore a heavy fur lined blue cloak against the cold, though he could have easily kept himself warm with his ki. But after the strange things he had been felling, he and Choutzu both lately, he had been taking extra precautions, and that included keeping his ki lowered to nearly undetectable levels. Silly, perhaps, but he didn't think so.

Choutzu floated next to him, his small, changeless companion, like a small china doll in appearance. He was protected by a small bubble of ki, just enough to keep the snow and the worst of the wind from his skin.

This place was a wild, harsh vantage point, totally open to the elements. The two of them often came here, together or apart, if vexed by a serious problem that needed long thought. It was a good place to think, the weather totally closing them off from the outside world. No distractions, no worries, just the view of the white wastes below them and the raging winds that almost never stopped, even in what passed for summer this far north.

"Something's going to happen." Tien turned toward his friend. "Earth is in danger. I can feel it, and if I can, you must."

Choutzu reluctantly nodded, looking childlike and afraid despite the fact that he was as old as Tien himself. "I've been feeling it for a while now. Stronger and stronger." He gulped. "Danger. Not just for us, either."

Tienshinhan nodded, as if this was what he had expected. "Danger for everything. Something huge." He paused, turned to his companion, his face glancing from the wastes below. "Something much bigger than us, or Goku, or earth. Choutzu, I'm worried."

Choutzu looked at his friend, startled. He had never heard Tien actually state that he was afraid before, not even in such a hazy way. The tri-clops was a stone pillar, always there, never wavering. If he was admitting to fear, something was wrong. That, even more than his own huge psychic powers, convinced Choutzu that these were not just vapors he was starting at. Something bad was going to happen, and they had to try to warn the others.

These feelings passed between them easier than speaking. Sometimes with them it was just that way. Both being telepaths, they could at times communicate only through feelings of the mind. This time, they both knew what they needed to do. The Z fighters were scattered all over the globe, and gathering them together without the aid of Goku's instant transmission would be long work. Therefore, Capsule Corp. would be the best place to start.

Because as far as either could tell, Goku and Vegeta were gone from the planet earth. They didn't know why, or for how long, and waiting was quickly becoming less and less of an option. If there was something coming (and they were both sure there was), waiting was the last thing they should do.

Tien sighed. "Okay. Let's go. If we can't do anything else, we can find Trunks and Goten. Gohan and Pan."

It still irked him slightly, knowing that almost all the others on the planet who could make a difference were saiyajin. He had worked his entire life, harder than any legendary masters he had ever heard tell of. But now, when he was at his peak, strong enough to destroy planets with little effort, he was still playing second fiddle to a bunch of people who thought of fighting once a week and were given their power at birth. If he knew as little about combat as they did, he would have been long in his grave.

Of course, he reflected bitterly, with as little as Goten and Trunks trained these days, he was probably stronger than they were. The thought held no joy for him at the moment.

Author's Note: Yeah, yeah, I know this chapter is rather short. I just don't want to start what's next until the next one, because it'll be rather long. Anyway, ciao.

Rev.


	7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven:

Babidi rarely slept, and when he did, he had never dreamed. But ever since he had come back through the Golden Moon and lived again, ever since he had become so powerful, he had begun to dream, very vividly. After the fiasco at Arda and Osiris's ship, he felt weary, and knew that the warriors he was up against would need at least a little time to talk and plan before they began their pursuit of him.

So as soon as they appeared in his ship, Babidi used a simple incantation to send the monster Shine to sleep for a while and then he slowly made his way to his own chambers for a precious nap. Only an hour or so, nothing more.

But when he slept, he dreamt. And now what he was dreaming of was so strange… it was almost as if he were watching a memory, but one that was not his, or only seemed to be through a false feeling of déjà vu. When he woke up, he would only remember it in fragments. But now, he was deep in its grip.

_He felt a prisoner in his own body, almost. He was seeing through his own eyes, but as is sometimes common in dreams, he had no control. He was a member of the audience, not a player. _

_He was walking down a stone hall, and he could see from the low vantage point that he was walking rather than floating. The walls were damp and slick with moss, and there were puddles of stagnant water on the floor. The lights above flickered sporadically. Some were already out. The whole place had the air of somewhere long abandoned to the elements of time._

_He wasn't sure how long this walking went on, but it was not long before he began to feel something up ahead, in the darkness. It wasn't a ki…not precisely as he knew it anyway. But it was something alive. And it felt absolutely loathsome. Even he, a wizard who made a career out of seeking out the very lowest creatures and making them his slaves, did not want to come any closer to it than he had to. It felt like something from beyond the world. But he was being carried along in his own body, a dream-prisoner helpless to do anything but watch._

_He was granted unexpected reprieve, however. As they began to draw close, the thing that felt so bad slunk away, and quickly. There was no way of knowing why, and nobody to ask. It was simply gone, leaving an empty room. _

_Empty? No, not quite. There was something in there, something so close to dead that he hadn't felt it before, its life force masked by the thing he had felt on approach. It was somewhere ahead, in the darkness. And he was fairly sure that it was this they were heading for._

_He was right. No sooner had he thought it than there was a door in front of him, looming out of the darkness. It was of some hard, gray wood, unadorned as far as he could see. From behind it came a sound… the softest moan._

_Babidi saw his own hand rise, but it seemed wrong. Less like his and more like a human hand. As if it were changing. And that was very unsettling. But the hand waved once over the latch, which opened, and then was gone from sight. So he didn't worry about it. The door swung open of its own volition. _

_In the middle of the dimly lit brick room was a man. Or what was left of a man. Its face had been decimated, and it appeared that the eyes, tongue, and most of the intestines had been ripped out. How it was still alive, even as little as it was, was a mystery. With sick horror (an emotion so unnatural to him that he almost didn't know what it was), he realized that whatever he had felt before had been eating this man._

_When he entered the room, however, the thing on the floor somehow found the strength to move a little. And it even tried to speak, though what came out was nothing but garble, with no tongue to shape the words._

_"Eyyye ed ajessy…orded…on…"_

_The mental message, however, lit up in his brain clearly, despite the man's state._

My Red Majesty. Mordred is gone.

_Babidi heard a chuckle from his own mouth, and the great wizard of evil felt his blood turn to ice. The voice was not his, not even close. This voice was terrible. Just hearing it was like going momentarily mad. It was the voice of something that was not a flesh and blood mortal and probably never had been. To hear such a noise coming from his own head was beyond terrible._

_"Fear not, my servant. Mordred's quest is doomed, and has been from the moment he was birthed into the world. It is his _ka._ You, however, are not finished with your long labor in my service yet."_

_That not-quite Babidi's hand reached into view again. It gently reached under the man's chin (what was left of it, anyway) and lifted. The whole of what was left of the body floated into the air and shifted, and the man wailed inarticulately at the ceiling in pain, though how he could make a sound when his throat was gone was a mystery._

_"You would have betrayed me, Walter. You would have taken his guns, wouldn't you? And climbed to the top of the Tower. You would have laughed at me as I raved in my prison." The thing in Babidi smirked as it said this, knowing the answer already but wanting to make this thing whine and beg, to debase it and take every last shred of will to disobey. _

_The man (Walter, evidently) was whimpering now, and a stream of gibberish flooded through his mouth and his brain. To Babidi, none of this talk made any sense, and he only wanted to wake up. He was not a wizard, not a creature of evil, now he was simply someone having a terrible dream and wanting to wake from it. But this was so real. He could smell the blood._

_"But even one so old and evil as I can find the capacity for forgiveness, my servant. You were ever the most clever, my right hand. And there is a chance for redemption. Aye, redemption, and perhaps atonement, if you stay true. Would you serve me again?"_

_An almost grateful moan of assent from the bloody thing._

_"Good, that's very good. Now I want you to promise me, Walter. Or Flagg. Or any of your names, what ever you want to call yourself. I want to hear you promise your life for me. Can you speak it, cully? My life for you."_

_"Aay __ife__ or ooo" the sounds would have been comic if not for the utter desperation in the voice._

my life for you my life for you my life for you

_Babidi was struggling toward wakefulness, and he knew now in this horrible dream that there was something totally alien driving his body; in that moment he understood everything, from the moment he had absorbed what he had thought was simply a powerful demon, like millions of others over time. In that moment he saw the Crimson King, and he flew in utter panic toward reality. He was deep in the dungeons of sleep, and it was a long battle._

_The Crimson King smiled with Babidi's mouth, a mouth that was slowly changing, looking less like the wizards, more…human. The figure that had once been Babidi was now almost four feet tall and still growing. Changing. _

_"It is well." The King laughed softly. _

_Then, with no forewarning, Babidi was grabbed, he felt it though he was but a prisoner in his own mind, bodiless. He felt a spell, power he had grown in himself over countless years, ripped from his mind. It was the worst pain, the most horrible thing he had ever felt. Like being raped and torn in half at once. Conscious thought ceased in his mind, it only screamed in inarticulate agony._

_The Crimson King flung the spell at Walter. The spell, which is really no more than a particular cross between telepathy and possession, lanced into Walter's brain and began to spread, slowly. The man on the floor howled, grisly remains of his body thrashing. But even as the magic worked, the wounds began to heal, new flesh grew in, and time seemed to reverse itself. His midsection molded back together like magic; eyes and tongue that had been eaten by a spider creature named Mordred re-formed themselves out of this air, the flesh of many wounds healing, the blood disappearing._

_In less than half a minute, before him stood a man, six feet in height, clothed in black. The robes hung to his feet, and the hood shadowed his eyes. His face was pale, thin, and one lock of lank dark hair fell over his forehead. His eyes were very dark._

_On his forehead was a symbol Babidi's dazed mind recognized. He should, it was his own. The twisted M rune that had marked his slaves for centuries. But it wasn't that…his gaze shifted, and now it was a bloody, staring eye…now the M again…_

_Walter O' Dim, also known in many worlds as Flagg, Marten, Maerlyn, and countless other names, kneeled before the Crimson King._

_"Yes, I see it all now… my life for you. My life for you."_

_And Babidi, finally driven to the very edge, crashed through the barrier of sleep._

Into the waking world.

The wizard sat up in bed, staring into the darkness. The dream, whatever it had been about, had been a bad one. If he had known these were going to be the price, he almost would have stayed in hell. He could recall no details of it, only the horrible pain, a shadow of the terror he had felt.

He waved a hand, and his crystal ball winked into existence. He looked into it and realized that almost seven hours had passed, not only the one he had meant to sleep. With a curse, he was up and gone from the room, to wake his monster and begin preparing for the visitors he knew would come.

Goku and co. were far from ready to take to Babidi's heels, however. At the moment, there were even more pressing matters to deal with.

The five warriors stood with Kaio-sama amidst the wreckage of Enma's office. In the corner, now covered with a sheet that the Kaio had produced seemingly from nowhere, was Enma himself, at least what there was left of him. There was no question among them as to who could have done this.

"Damn him." Goku had gone from his normally cheerful self to ragingly angry in a flash when they came across this. "Why would he do something like this?"

"Because he likes it." Arda said immediately. "Death is what he deals in, in case you forgot. Did you really think he wasn't still a threat to you?"

Goku stared mutely. He could think of nothing to say, because despite the uneasy feelings, that was exactly what he _had _thought. When old enemies grudgingly called a truce, they usually didn't back out. Both Vegeta and Piccolo had started as his enemies, and were now two of his most solid allies. He had been stupid, he saw, expecting the same thing to happen in this case, but there was nothing to be done about it now. Osiris was gone. The question was, where?

"I don't think you need to worry too much about him now." Arda said, feeling the thoughts on the top of Goku's mind. "I think he's off to wander again. He was always fond of the wastes."

Vegeta spoke just before Goku could. "We can't take that chance." The prince growled. "What if he hasn't headed back to the wastes? What if he's headed for earth?"

The vampire looked confused. "Why would he want to go to earth? There's nothing there for him."

Goku didn't even open his mouth; Vegeta had taken the helm. "You of all people should see that. You said yourself he deals in death. What if he simply decides to kill all of our families for sheer amusement? What if he goes to some other planet, full of innocent people?"

Arda's mouth hung slightly open. Vegeta was right, of course. He should have seen at once. If only Osiris hadn't woken up!

Goku was smiling, absurdly under the conditions. He couldn't believe he was hearing Vegeta speak about innocent people he had never met as if they mattered. This was something new. He spoke.

"We can't let that happen. I wouldn't let Frieza or Buu or anyone else hurt people who had done nothing wrong, and I'm not going to start now. Until we find him and make certain somehow that he won't hurt anybody, he's as big a threat as this Crimson King."

Kaio-sama spoke up. "Goku, I approve the sentiments, but you're spreading your forces too thin. It's going to take all of you to make it through Babidi's ship. He's made some changes since the old one, I can tell you. And if the King gets full hold over him, you'll need every bit of help you can get."

Goku only shook his head. "We'll manage, somehow. We have to."

The god sighed. "I guess you will. You always have. It's your _ka._"

"_Ka_?" Goku looked confused.

"It's an old word." Arda broke in. "I haven't heard anyone use it in literally centuries. It means destiny."

"Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, but yes, that's the gist of it." Kaio-sama smiled weakly. "Your _ka_, Goku, seems to be to save us all time and time again."

"I guess it is. So, if Osiris isn't still here, where did he go?"

The Kaio thought. "Well, if he's not in the afterlife anymore, which he can't be because we would have sensed him, then he can only have gone down to hell or through the door."

"What door?" Mia piped in, mostly because she felt the need to say something.

"Yeah, what door?" Goku asked. "I've died lots of times, and I never saw any door."

"It's a ways down the path, past where the souls normally go to check in. Just a door, standing there. But only people with physical bodies can use it."

"A door to where?" Goku asked.

The Kaio shrugged. "Anywhere you want."

A collective sigh seemed to pass through them.

"But only a person of great mental power and will, or someone with a powerful glammer or spell can get it to open, and only at certain times of the year. Once it's open, however, it can take you nearly anywhere you want to go."

"Well stop wasting time then!" Vegeta shouted, making them all jump. "Who is going to go after Osiris, and who is going to fight Babidi?"

"Vegeta's actually right, we have to hurry." Kaio-sama said. "If we get to the door quickly, we may be able to get it to open on the same place without knowing where it was. We could find him."

Goku thought quickly. He, himself, had to go after Babidi, that much was obvious. They would need him to fight Shine, and he was the strongest. On the other hand, he didn't fully trust anyone other than himself to be able to kill Osiris, if it came to that. They probably wouldn't be strong enough, not even Vegeta. Maybe two of them, but could he spare them?

He had to decide, and he made a quick guess, following where his heart told him. He hoped it would be alright.

"Vegeta, Arda, you two go after Osiris. Uubu, Mia, you two and I go after Babidi."

The saiyajin prince nodded and turned in the direction of the path past snake way, and the door. Arda turned to follow him without a word, but Goku stopped him with a hand on the shoulder.

"If you have to… can you fight him and really try to kill him? You won't hold back…?"

The vampire looked at him as if he had lost his mind. "Of course, I'll do my best to kill him if we have to. Hell, I've tried enough times before. But I have to warn you, it hasn't worked yet."

Goku may have replied, but he didn't stop to listen. Shaking the hand off, he caught up with Vegeta, and the two took to the skies, leaving the others behind.

Tien and Choutzu landed on the front lawn of the Capsule Corp. only a few minutes after leaving the mountains. Such minor questions as to what they would actually say once they got everyone together had to be left for later. They felt it now; things were getting more urgent. Since they had taken off, the edgy feeling they had been feeling before now grew into a pounding call, a pulse in their minds. Something was going to happen, they didn't doubt it now.

And the fact that neither Goku nor Vegeta was on the planet added to their paranoia. There was no reason for either saiyajin to be gone, but they were just the same.

They were saved the trouble of knocking on the front door, however. There were shouts and occasional tremors from behind the house, shouts that they easily recognized. Trunks was one. The other was Gohan's daughter, Pan. And, wonder of wonders, it actually sounded like they were sparring. Pan, probably the most saiyajin-like of all the offspring despite her more human genetics, was always trying to spar with someone, but Trunks training was a rarity.

Tien walked briskly around the side of the building, Choutzu floating next to him. They came upon a scene that would have been pleasant in other circumstances. Trunks and Pan (now a girl of about seventeen, much older than the last time we saw her) were sparring lightly, keeping flying to a minimum. They were laughing and having fun. Beside them, sitting in the grass a safe distance to the right, was Gohan, reading a book and occasionally glancing up to offer some word of advice or warn them off before they ran into him.

As they came into view, Gohan looked up, and his face brightened with a smile of real pleasure. "Hey, Tienshinhan! Wow, long time no see!"

Despite his worries, Tien smiled back and waved as he walked forward. But that was as far as the pleasantries got before the man stepped out of thin air.

Vegeta and Arda flew down the path that preceded snake way, the opposite direction souls normally traveled. They were moving at what for them was a slow pace, slow enough to actually see the features of what they were passing over. So far it had been only yellow clouds and the path that looked like beaten dirt cutting through them. But up ahead, there was something small. They couldn't yet see what it was.

Neither spoke. There was no love lost between the vampire and the saiyajin prince. In fact, Vegeta's first act upon meeting Arda had been to knock him through a few miles of dense forest near Goku's home. That had given them no hatred toward each other, however. For now the only thing on their minds was Osiris, and finding the door. Both of them were focused on the indistinct speck in the distance.

Vegeta broke the silence. "Where do you think he would go? Besides earth?" his gaze never wavered from the dot at the end of the path, which they could now see was a door. They sped up. "We need somewhere to start, in case we can't get this door to show us somehow." He paused. "By the way, I hope you have some idea on how to use this door. The Kai didn't exactly leave us an instruction manual."

"I don't know." Arda said calmly, not unfriendly. "When we get to it, we'll see what there is to see."

As he spoke, they came upon the door. They descended and came to rest in front of it.

It was dark gray, and very heavy and thick. A door, attached to nothing in the middle of nowhere. It stuck up out of the clouds as if it had every right to be there and wasn't at all odd. One single word was written on the front of it. The letters shifted and changed in front of their eyes, swimming, but the message was easily read somehow all the same.

UNFOUND

They stood and looked at it for a while. Then both looked away, up at each other, at the same moment. Those strange letter/runes hurt the eyes to see for very long.

"So what do we do now?" Vegeta asked. The sarcasm that always tinged his voice was not evident.

"Well…" Arda said, "I'm not sure. We don't want to rush into this, because that could really lead to disaster."

"Yes, but we can't take too long, or we might not be able to catch him."

They frowned.

Vegeta walked around the side of the door. When he did, a curious thing happened. When he got exactl beside it, the door disappeared. He moved back a step, and it reappeared.

He pointed this out to Arda, who seemed to think it unimportant.

"We could just open it." Arda said after a time. "I mean, what have we got to lose, right? Just open it and think of Osiris as hard as we can."

Vegeta nodded slowly. That sounded horribly risky, given how little they knew about this doorway, but it was also the only answer that made even a bit of sense. If they had to try something, that might be the best way.

"You do it." The prince said finally. "You know him best, so you'll provide the clearest memories of him."

Arda nodded, and without a pause, grasped the knob.

The jolt through his body was like a thousand volts of electricity, but the jolt to his mind was beyond the ability of anyone to describe. He felt it grab his brain, like a living hand, a psychic worm in his mind. It burned and probed and dug ever deeper, sinking fishhooks of agony through his brain.

_This is the test…_the thought passed through his mind somehow separate from the pain and invasion. _This is why you have to be powerful to use it…fight past the pain._

_Arda!!!_

Kaio-sama's voice, like a shout in his ear.

_Arda! Get Vegeta to help you! _The panic was evident in his voice. He had expected to have time to speak with them telepathically, warn them. _You have to think of Osiris! If you don't you'll be sucked through, into the darkness between the worlds. There are monsters in there that would eat you for lunch, so _think, _damn__ you!!!_

"Help me!!" he choked the words out, and a spray of blood came with them. Vegeta, who had seen all this happen in the space of perhaps two seconds, grabbed Arda's arm. Perhaps he meant to yank it away from the harmless looking wood, but once he touched the vampire, he was locked in.

With the pain split between the two of them, it was easier to concentrate. _Think of Osiris!! _He screamed mentally at Vegeta, and then proceeded to do just that, pushing against the power that had invaded his brain with every ounce of will he had.

The prince proved by far up to the task. His will had been iron since he was a child, and his physical strength was even greater.

The knob slowly turned under Arda's hand, and then the door blew open as if by a hurricane. They were thrown back twenty feet, landing in a heap.

Through the doorway that had opened on nothing only moments before they could now see what was either a cave of a very dark underground tunnel. Water dripped on the floor, and a chill air blew through on their faces.

_Go through! _Kaio-sama's voice told them. _And be prepared for anything! If he's in a different world on another level of the Tower, your powers may change slightly. But go before it closes!!_

They spared not a second. The two warriors leapt up despite the dizziness and lingering pain they both felt, and dived through the door. It slammed shut behind them with a bang.

The man who seemed to step out of nowhere at all to the edge of the back yard (which was really a back field) was about six feet tall, hooded and robed in deep black. His face was waxy and pale, plastered with the sort of smile that makes people grin back very nervously. His eyes were shadowed by the hood, and there was an overall air of darkness about him.

On one lapel of his cloak were several buttons. One was a pig in a police officer's hat, dribbling blood. The message underneath read, "How's your pork?". Another was a happy face bearing the old axiom, Have a nice day. A third supported the Ku Klux Klan. There were others, but no one read them. On the opposite lapel was a red embroidered eye.

But these hardly registered their attention, because on the man's forehead was a red, bleeding eye. The blood didn't drip down his face, however; it simply sat there, a wound that never clotted.

This filled Tien with horror and loathing so deep that he couldn't keep it from showing on his face. He reached up involuntarily and touched the skin just below his own, comparatively normal third eye.

The man in black didn't seem to notice this. In fact, he chuckled as he walked up, the wide, untrustworthy smile still hanging from his face.

"Hile, gunslingers of this world!" he said.

Gohan stepped forward, his book forgotten on the grass. "Gunslingers? Excuse me, sir, but we've never used guns before in our lives. And this is private property. May I ask who you are and what your business is?"

The man laughed again, and slipped a hand under his robe. Tien came within an ace of attacking, but his normal senses betrayed him. There was no more than the ordinary amount of ki coming from this man, and no human weapon (no gun, the word was in his mind) could hurt any of them. He paused for a fraction of a second, and that was the undoing of them all.

Out came the hand again, quick as lightning. But now it held a horror beyond imagining in it's grip.

It looked like nothing more than a glass ball, black as jet, the size of a fist. But the feeling hit right away. It was like Arda had felt from the door, had they known, but different in a very vital way. There was no pain, but their bodies froze, limbs quivering like water, brains unable to think, unable to do anything but stare at the ball in this man's hand. It was _alive_, that was the thing, alive and full of horrible power. It was like the eye of a monster that had grown in the deepest shadowy corner of hell. And it was half awake.

Trunks fell to his knees, a groan escaping his lips. Pan whimpered slightly. They were the only sounds. What had been a situation totally in their control was now one of grave danger.

None of them could move, none of them could _think._ It was all that glass ball, full of such terrifying power.

The man chuckled again. The ball rolled over his fingers and around his hand, back and forth like a magic trick. There was a sound now. Chimes. They made the eyes water, and the head hurt.

"Well, I could answer your first question first, can't I? Yes. I call you gunslingers because you, with the exception of this young, lazy man, are warriors. Gunslingers where I come from, if ya ken."

They heard him, somehow the man in black's words penetrated through the chimes and the horrible aura of the ball.

"Second question. My name is Walter o Dim, or Walter Houji. This in my hand is Black Thirteen, a very powerful ally to have. For it's put me in a powerful position over you, cullies, ha!" his strange speech broke into a laugh. "A thousand worlds I've traveled and never seen the likes of you, yet here are the Tower's best hopes, in my clutches."

He looked to Gohan, and Gohan knew instantly that this Walter knew him, who he was, everything about him.

"Do you know that right now your father is headed into a trap? He is at palaver with a lord of worlds now, but things are going just as my master planned." The smile on Walter's face grew even wider. "Then tower is going to fall, despite all their efforts to stop it. And my master and I will rule Todash darkness forever."

Walter o Dim was sly. He told them not a quarter of what was in his mind, but he babbled like an overconfident fool who brags before the battle is won. It would put them off their guard in certain respects. The one with three eyes, he and the young girl, they were both sharp. He didn't want to tell them anything they could actually use.

He actually sort of hoped that Goku would triumph over the Crimson King. If that happened, it might be he who climbed the tower, he united the bloodline of Eld at last, he who opened the room at the top.

Was it not too late, even now, to rule all?

He whirled and backed away, but his attention and the ball's magic remained on all of them.

"If your father falls, ye child of vermin, you would be next in line to fulfill the prophecy. You should thank the gods, really, that we didn't find out about it sooner, or you would have died before you were even squirt in your mother's loins!"

He turned back to them. "But now we know. And your father will fall to the great demon Shine, and my master the King. And you will all scream in insanity into the Todash chimes forever."

He might have gone on like that for quite some time before disposing of them all, except for Choutzu. He hadn't give the funny little creature much thought, and now he regretted it. Choutzu had been building up and bracing himself, more immune to the chimes and the feeling of terror and paralysis than the others. Now he hit Walter with all the psychic force he could muster like a mental hammer.

The man in black flinched, and almost fell. He cried out, one hand flying to his head.

And his attention fell, control wavered.

Gohan, in a state of high anger, and desperation after hearing what this man had to say, broke control and charged, slapping the ball from Walter's hand.

At least, that was what he intended to do. But when his hand touched the ball, it seemed to liquefy. Blackness, flecked with moving orange embers, flowed out and engulfed him with a speed that was horrifying to see. He had time to scream once, try to pull back. But before he could do much more than flinch, he was covered.

The blackness didn't retreat back to the ball. In seemed to fold in on itself, and the chimes grew suddenly so loud that all the others had to cover their ears. Pan joined Trunks, her feet failing her and she fell to her knees.

The blackness suddenly shrunk, seeming to eat itself, and there was a huge BANG that shook the yard.

Gohan was gone.


End file.
